The air in Brooklyn tasted like rust and memory. It was October 10, 2025, 8:28 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Lyra Chen stood barefoot in her apartment, watching the mirror warp. The glass didn’t crack—it folded. Her reflection blinked, then turned away. She hadn’t moved.

She was remembering Thailand.

Not the Thailand of postcards and temples, but the one hidden behind the teakwood walls of her D’s relatives’ compound in Chiang Mai. It was 1961. She was not born yet. But she had been there. Or would be. Or had already returned.

Her great-aunt, a woman with no official name and a scar that ran from her temple to her collarbone, taught her how to disappear. The woman had once trained with Soviet operatives stationed unofficially in Southeast Asia, back when “Call Me Anderson” was still a whispered question in Saigon bars. She taught Lyra how to walk without sound, how to use reflections to mislead pursuers, how to strike with the heel of the hand and the silence of intent.

Lyra learned to fight like a ghost. Not because she wanted to. Because she would need to.

The breach had rehearsed her in fragments. Now it was stitching her together.

She opened her hollow laptop. The formula pulsed again.

Φ(t) = ∫₀^∞ [sin(πt) / √(x² + y² + z² − τ²)] dt

She traced it slowly. The screen shimmered. The room darkened. The music began.

It was Led Zeppelin. Not a recording. A memory. A portal.

She stepped backward into 1979, into the backstage shadows of the Knebworth concert. The crowd roared like prophecy. The air smelled like sweat and ozone. A roadie looked up, startled. She was not supposed to be there.

But she was.

The writing had changed. The world had changed.

And no one had noticed. Yet.